food stamps

I started to write a post after seeing yet another poverty shaming meme in regard to food stamps or SNAP and healthy eating. Then I remembered I had written about it already on Natural In A Snap a few years a go. So here it is.

As I sit to write this post I think back to the first posts that I wrote. How idealistic I was. How I thought that if I just tried hard enough if I just pinched my SNAP pennies eating healthy would be, well a snap. It is possible to live differently. It is not easy and having a dose of privilege is a big help too. Now as all this controversy swirls around regarding the proposed cuts to food stamps I want to share some simple truths with anyone who is willing to read them.

My family eats as healthy as we can. It’s not because I have some high ideals or because I’m morally better than other food stamp recipients. Frankly, it’s because I’m sick. I started on this journey because one day while sitting in my doctor’s office after being diagnosed with fibromyalgia my doctor said “I can’t guarantee that what you eat causes what’s wrong with you but you need to start eating as organic as possible”. This wasn’t totally new information to me, by then I worked at a natural food co-op. The question was how do I afford it? We were having a hard enough time just trying to have balanced meals (that was something we had committed to years before). Now people will tell you that that’s a fiction. That if poor people really want to they can eat healthy even vegetarian or vegan. They will point to studies and week long experiments that say people can eat ‘healthy’ on a food stamp budget. I am telling you my lived experience says that they are wrong.

Here’s why- good food costs money! I have always said that on this blog. Yes there are ways to maximize your budget. However, when you are working with three dollars per person per day for your food budget please explain to me how you are supposed to have a healthy balanced meal three times a day with snacks. Not to mention meals devoid of processed foods and unhealthy foods. (Please don’t say coupons because while helpful just nope and in Mississippi we pay taxes on all food purchases which means if you use coupons you must pay tax in cash on them)

The reason I say devoid of processed foods is because I keep hearing and seeing people say poor people who were on SNAP should not be “allowed” to buy “bad food” or “junk food”. Let me share a secret in order for my family to eat healthy I have to be strict about how much we eat, what we eat, and no junk snacks. That means literally telling my kids they can’t have second helpings or giving them my food meaning I don’t eat (people are probably surprised by that because I’m fat but my kids eat far more than I do). That’s because a healthy food budget doesn’t allow for the cheap things that keep poor people full.

Something I thought about the other day while watching liberals on Facebook discuss how people like me shouldn’t buy this or that is how often the fights my kids have are about food. I mean that. My kids often fight about food. Don’t get me wrong my children are not starving they are often still hungry (starving and not full are two different things). This is what happens when fruit is a luxury and second helpings can be too. Candy in our house can start a riot not only because it’s rare but because once it’s gone it really is: gone. Someone actually thought I didn’t feed my kids once because my youngest often begs for the junk food she sees everyone else with.

I’m not sure if people realize that with three dollars a day people on SNAP who have food restrictions and dietary needs cannot meet them. People like my children who have food allergies. Which means food stamp staples like tuna and peanut butter are out of the question for them. People like my mother who has such complex needs I can’t even list them all. People like me who have fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, rheumatoid arthritis and may have other autoimmune issues suspected whose very illness is impacted by diet.

We are the people who some people seem not to have compassion for only shame and contempt (epic side eye to you Eric Cantor). Thing is with the country in an economic downturn the likelihood of you knowing someone on food stamps is really high. The likelihood of you knowing someone who has benefited from food stamps in their lifetime is really high.

Far from the caricature of the “welfare queen” we are normal people most of us have jobs, we are good parents, we are caregivers, we are productive members of society. I am not sure what kind of people write off whole groups of other people as unworthy of having food. I will say if you are one of those people I’m not sure I want to know you.

So basically I just don’t want to hear nonsense. I don’t want to hear tired references to “welfare queen myths”. I don’t want to hear how if undeserving people weren’t on the program than deserving people could be. That’s not how it works. If you’re angry that the government hasn’t expanded of eligibility then say that. However, that is not the fault of current recipients that is governmental failure. Every time you blame other struggling people you are falling for the exact trap those in power want to use to divide and conquer us. The more they can get someone who is struggling to hate someone like me the less they will question our current systems failures. I don’t want to hear about how there is rampant fraud in the food stamp program because there’s not. I don’t want to hear anything that isn’t factually based or productive in the SNAP debate.

This debate can not be had devoid of facts and context because I am not a stereotype, my friends are not stereotypes, my children are not stereotypes, my disabled mother is not a stereotype, 45 million Americans are not stereotypes. We are people with names, families with needs. We deserve the minimum respect that people will have an honest fact-based debate about this issue impacting our live.

This was originally published in the Jackson Free Press on Oct. 2, 2013 and was posted on my old blog

Years ago when I was a young mother, I worked two, sometimes three, low-wage restaurant jobs. This was not easy work. It was extraordinarily taxing—not only on my body but my mind. Wait staff have a lot of tasks to complete. Plus, they have to smile and be pleasant even when customers and management serve up a big old side of mistreatment.

Working those kinds of jobs always involves much more hard work than money, which is why I had two and three at a time. But even when I worked two full-time and one part-time job, I still couldn’t make ends meet.

Recently, fast-food workers across the country went on strike. They asked for something fairly simple: a living wage. Make no mistake: The multinational companies that employ these workers can afford to pay better. But many from the right-wing political sphere called striking workers greedy, lazy and un-American.

Fast-forward to the congressional debate over food-stamp benefits (or SNAP), which has the potential to affect many of these same workers. I keep hearing from conservatives—and even some liberals—that “those people” just need to work harder. If only “they” would do that, then the collective American “we” wouldn’t have to take care of “them.” The problem with that thinking is that many people who receive SNAP do work.

Surprisingly absent from the broader discussion of responsibility has been the topic of corporate responsibility in the matter. When companies pay their employees fairly, people who work don’t need food stamps. I find this disjointed thinking odd and non-congruent. It seems as if, in the eyes of some, the working poor are wrong no matter what they do.

In all my working years—on and off public assistance—I have contributed to the community. I am raising epic, awesome kids (yes, I am biased). I resent it when others imply that because people need assistance to put food on the table, they are drug addicts, lazy or worth less than other people.

Every person on assistance has a story. Some may have stories you approve of, and some may not. At the end of the day, I would like to think I live in a country that believes even people we don’t like deserve to eat, one that is willing to feed people in need even when we don’t approve of every food choice. I want to have faith that I live in a country that believes providing free school lunches to hungry children is a good and moral thing to do.